


Don't Be Afraid and Don't Delay

by brynnmck



Category: Newsies (1992)
Genre: First Time, M/M, Roof Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-14
Updated: 2013-08-14
Packaged: 2017-12-23 11:59:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/926149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brynnmck/pseuds/brynnmck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Jack's chin goes up, his arms cross, and there it is, after all this time: the opening, the weak spot, the news breaking, and David dives for it. "Prove it."</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't Be Afraid and Don't Delay

**Author's Note:**

  * For [belmanoir](https://archiveofourown.org/users/belmanoir/gifts).



> For Belmanoir, as a belated birthday gift (belated by necessity due to how I actually watched this movie for the first time at her birthday party, hee). Thanks to her for bringing this (and many other awesome things) into my life, and for happy historical consultation. I love you, Ma Noir! <3 Any mistakes--historical or otherwise--are my own.

When David reaches the top rung of the ladder, Jack is already waiting for him, slouched into a chair and half-hidden by a large pot of basil. 

"All hail the cub reporter!" he calls, hand raised in salute. 

David laughs and salutes back. "All hail Jack Kelly, union leader and scourge of Manhattan's ruling class!" As he crosses the roof, he sees another chair set up next to Jack's, and as soon as David gets within range, Jack flips him a cigar.

"Here ya go, Davey, we're celebratin'."

"Thanks." Honestly, with lurid descriptions of tuberculosis deaths crowding the obituaries, it's always struck David as strange to voluntarily engage in an activity that had made him cough like a locomotive the first time he'd tried it. But Jack indulges occasionally, and something about the sight of his mouth closed around a smoke tends to make David's fingers itch until he finally gives in.

He takes the empty chair for himself and leans over far enough to let Jack give him a light.

"So?" Jack asks when he's done.

David takes a puff on the cigar, and immediately remembers why cigars are better in theory than in practice. Well, it's more for the sake of ceremony, anyway. He slumps back, mirroring Jack's pose, savoring the moment. "So what?" 

"So." Jack slaps his hand down on a folded-up newspaper that's laid over his knee. "How's it feel to have your name on an article you didn't have to print yourself?"

David doesn't have to look at the pape to know that it's the _Sun_ , and that the fifth page has a four-inch column titled _Patrick's Peril: Mother Reunited With Long-Lost Son_ , with a byline that reads _David Jacobs_. The story has been pared down to essentially a fluff piece—only so much of the human experience can be crammed into four inches of ten-point Garamond, at the end of the day—but it's the first one that's just his, not his and Denton's, and it means something. It's a start.

Jack is watching him, beaming like he's the one with his name under the headline. David blushes; his parents' lessons on the virtue of humility have been echoing in his head all day, and he's been trying to listen to them. This is Jack, though, who wouldn't let humility in if it was naked and begging at the door in the dead of winter, so he lets himself smile back, as wide as he's been wanting to.

"Feels pretty good," he admits. "Where'd you get this, anyway?" He'd been planning to buy a few copies off Les when he got home, and that won't be for a couple of hours yet—it's still barely dusk.

"Pfft," Jack scoffs, "I got it off a newsstand. Where d'you think I got it? I had seven kids offer it to me today. Crutchy tried to give me three—one for me, and one each for your mom and pop."

"Oh." David blinks, trying to take that in. He still thinks of the newsies as his brothers, of course, and always will—even, in some ways, the ones he's never met—but it still surprises him sometimes, that they'd feel the same even though he sold his last pape well over a year ago.

"Yeah, 'oh.'" Jack reaches over to whap David on the head with the paper. "The boys are Boots' and Racetrack's now. They don't forget their own."

David wrinkles his nose and snatches the pape out of Jack's hand. "It's just a fluff piece."

Jack snatches it back. "Yeah, but it's a start." He smoothes the pape carefully on the table next to him as he says it, and something in David's chest goes tight and almost unbearably warm. 

A change of topic seems wise. "What about you?" he asks. "Scrape any skies today?"

"Every day," Jack answers cheerfully, flexing shoulders that have broadened with the effort of elevating the city. Half the time when David thinks of Jack, he sees him silhouetted against the sky. "Saw your ma downstairs. She said to make sure you ate something."

David sighs. He's twenty now; he's supposed to be taking care of his parents, not the other way around.

"It was awful sweet," Jack goes on mischievously. "The way she dotes on you just melts a guy's heart."

"How'd you like that new pillow she made for you?" David fires back. "Sure looked adorable when you woke up this morning." More than a few mornings find Jack on the Jacobs' couch, these days, and after all this time, the family takes it as a compliment. Jack doesn't accept extended hands easily, at least not if they haven't been spat in first.

Jack swoons theatrically in his chair. "Like sleepin' on a cloud. 'Course it can't quite compare to sharing a room with five snoring construction guys, but—"

A familiar sound cuts him off in mid-sentence: a long, low whistle from the streets below, and two higher ones immediately after. There's a pause, then it comes again, followed by the sound of a window opening. David looks over at Jack; sure, the last time he'd caught his best friend and his sister kissing around a corner, Roosevelt had still only been the Governor, but even so, David keeps wondering if Jack ever wonders. Jack's just grinning, though, and vaulting upright to tiptoe quickly across the roof. Caught up in the spirit, David follows. 

They reach the edge just in time to see Sarah lean over the railing of the fire escape and wave down toward Spot Conlon's upturned face.

"My lady," Spot calls, clutching his hat to his chest and smirking up at her with the sort of intent that David can't help thinking a brother is not meant to see. 

Sarah laughs. "Hush, you idiot. The whole block will hear you."

"Yeah," Jack interrupts in a stage whisper, pitched to carry to Sarah and Spot both. "Never know who might be lurkin' in the shadows."

"Hey, Jacky boy," Spot answers, unperturbed. "Miss, is this street rat bothering you? 'Cause I can take care of that for ya." He pulls his slingshot out of his back pocket and makes a show of lining up his shot, straight to the roof. David's pretty sure it's not loaded, though. 

Pretty sure. 

"I appreciate the offer," Sarah says, "but I can take care of myself. For a start," she continues, and squints up behind her into the last of the sunlight, hands on her hips, "I might remind any full-time or part-time residents of this house that Mama greatly disapproves of filling one's lungs with anything but fresh air, and isn't likely to look kindly on any member of the family found doing otherwise."

David winces at the cigar in his hand with reflexive guilt. 

"Aww, now, no need for threats. I'd never dream of arguing with the newest member of the mighty ILGWU," Jack says, laughing. He stubs out his cigar on the bricks, though, on the inside of the ledge where Sarah can't see, and David snickers. Even Jack Kelly knows better than to risk Esther Jacobs' disappointment. With some relief, David follows suit.

Sarah sniffs loftily, then sticks her tongue out at Jack. "I should hope not. So if we're all agreed, then…." Not so long ago, she would have pelted her way down the stairs; now she moves with confident economy, sure that adventure—and Spot—will wait for her.

Still, she'll always be his little sister, so David can't help calling after her, "Hey. It'll be dark soon." 

"I know," she answers in the tone of fond annoyance that's as familiar to him as the sound of his own name. "I'll be careful."

"She'll be back no worse for the wear, David," Spot assures him as Sarah's boots hit the ground. "On the honor 'a Brooklyn." 

There's only one response to that: Jack and David raise their fists and crow, "Brooklyn!" in triumphant, laughing unison, and Spot raises his fist back toward them before offering his arm to Sarah. She takes it with a nod and a warm smile—yes, brothers _definitely_ aren't meant to see that—and they head off down the street.

Jack is watching them go, clucking under his breath and shaking his head at the degradation of today's youth. David watches him watching them, watches the loose set of his shoulders and his wide grin.

"You're really not jealous, are you?" he asks, his mouth running ahead of his brain. "Not even a little bit?"

Jack shrugs easily. "Nah." He turns to plant his elbows on the wall and tips his head up to catch the low golden light. It's cooling off now as the sun goes down, but David can still see the faint sheen of sweat on his neck. "She's too good for me, you know that."

David snorts. "Oh, she's too good for you, but you'll come knocking on _my_ window at all hours? What does that say about me?"

And because some part of him is always watching, he thinks he sees Jack's throat ripple with a swallow, but when he pushes off the wall, there's only laughter in his voice. "Says maybe you never shoulda agreed to split those papes with me, way back when." He starts to walk backwards, hands out at his sides. "Too late now, Davey, we're partners—you're stuck."

"Guess so," David answers with a grin of his own, shoving his own hands in his pockets. Of course they're not really partners anymore, at least not in a way that anyone else would be able to see, but he likes hearing it all the same. Likes hearing Jack say it. 

"That first time out," Jack says as he collapses back into his chair. "That was somethin', huh? Like lightning, _bam_ , and they were on the mat." He jabs with his fists into empty air, one-two.

"Yeah." Those days are still vivid in David's mind, a newspaper splashed with bright vaudeville colors: the glint in Jack's eyes when they'd first met; the simmer of injustice that had boiled over to flood the streets; other voices shouting his words, other hands ready at his side for the first time in his life. "It was sure something."

"Now it's all meetings and votes and points of order," Jack sighs. "I mean, I get it, y'know? Everybody's gotta have a voice—you taught me that. And there's so _much_ , too, so many people can't speak up for themselves. But sometimes it just feels so…" His fingers curl into fists.

"I know." David rests a hand on Jack's shoulder and takes the chair next to him again. He's railed against it often enough himself, over the past few years: the grindingly slow pace of true progress, adding weight to the scales of justice a few grains of sand at a time. "But we've got more in common than we have differences. When the time is right, we'll fight together. And at the end of the day, they'll never be able to stop us."

Jack's head lolls sideways on the chair as he turns to slant a look at David. "You really believe that, don't you?"

"'Course I do," says David. He can't help grinning. "You taught me that."

And the way Jack smiles at that…. David has to look away before he does something foolish.

"And what about you?" Jack asks after a moment. "Spot and Sarah look like they're gettin' awful cozy, there, maybe even gonna settle down soon. You gonna be next?"

Well, that's a new angle, and it startles a laugh out of him. "Settle down? Me? With who?"

Jack raises an eyebrow. "You tell me. Ain't seen you with a girl for so long that I'm startin' to figure you're holding out on me."

"Nah, of course not." David ducks his head to hide his blush, though Jack isn't likely to guess its real source, which isn't so much the mostly solitary life David leads as it is the most recent exception to it: a bookie friend of Race's, a muggy night, and some half-drunk fumbling in the dark behind the track, several months back. So no, no girls for David these days.

"Aw, c'mon." Jack nudges his knee. "What about those girls who were hanging around after the rally last week? That dark-haired one was makin' eyes at you for sure." 

Tension starts to coil between David's shoulders. Lately, the more he denies any romantic entanglements, the more Jack seems to want to push him into one, and the closer David gets to just blurting out the truth he'd come to terms with quite a while back: that the primary person he's interested in being entangled with is Jack. There have even been times where he's dared to hope that Jack might want the same thing, but then something like this happens—simple brotherly goodwill that sharpens in the air between them until it lands on David's ears like harsh rejection—and it seems obvious he's just kidding himself. Either way, he hates lying to his best friend, and there are more and more days when he feels like even losing his right arm would be preferable to this slow death by suffocation.

"What about you?" he asks, because sometimes when Jack pushes, all he wants is for somebody to push back. "You get your share of batting eyelashes after rallies."

"I do, don't I?" Jack muses, hooking his thumbs through his suspenders. "But I ain't gonna pick just one yet—I got a while to go before I start playin' house." He waggles his eyebrows.

Which what David gets for pushing, he supposes: a lurid mental reel of Jack thoroughly exploring his options before settling down with some faceless girl, all while David stands by and watches. Something jagged and hot rises in his throat, and when he opens his mouth, it comes out as, "Pick one? I haven't seen you pick any."

Jack's eyes skip away. "I'm weighing my options," he says, and his smile doesn't falter, but David knows him too well. His breath catches. Come to think of it, he _hasn't_ seen Jack with any girls, not in a long time. 

"Are you?" he presses. "Or maybe you're just not sure what to do." He tries to keep it light, like the easy banter that crowds Park Row in the morning; the force underneath, though, is some patchwork of recklessness and fledgling reporter's instinct. There's a story here. 

"Oh, I know what to do." Jack's chin goes up, his arms cross, and there it is, after all this time: the opening, the weak spot, the news breaking, and David dives for it. 

"Prove it."

He may as well have tossed water in Jack's face; his friend blinks a few times, then snorts. There's something stretched tight beneath the words when he asks, "What, you want a demonstration?"

Just an instant of teetering on the precipice, deciding whether to jump or step back, then David hears himself say, "Yeah." The air seems to rush out of his lungs, leaving only giddy fear behind, but he learned newsboy swagger from the best, and it's instinct now: he spreads his hands out at his sides. "Sure, show me how the great Jack Kelly does it."

Jack narrows his eyes. "Ain't no girls here." His tongue darts out to wet his lips, quick and nervous.

David shrugs. "I know." 

Head cocked, Jack looks at him for a long moment. David can practically see his mind spinning, analyzing the angles, looking for how he's going to end up with the short end of the stick. David would reassure him, but even newsboy swagger doesn't carry him far enough to actually form the words that will take them past the point of no return; it's the hardest thing he's ever done just to meet Jack's eyes steadily, keep his muscles relaxed and his expression open. His own heartbeat thunders in his ears.

And then, between one beat and the next, Jack is on his knees next to David's chair. "Okay," he says. "Okay, well, if I got the chance—if the other person was willing and all…" He pauses, obviously waiting for David to break. When he doesn't, Jack goes on, "Well then, I might just…" He braces a hand on the far side of the chair and leans in slow, slow, agonizingly slow, watching David's face the entire time. David parts his lips in silent invitation. For half a second, he's afraid that the anticipation is going to finish him, that he's going to be sick and ruin everything. Then Jack's expression hardens with stubborn determination, and he closes the last inch or two to press his mouth to David's.

David's imagined this moment hundreds of times. After playing out various scenarios in his mind—several of which had ended in the need to sneak the bedsheets into the laundry basket without his mother looking at them too closely—he'd determined that the best course of action would be to take it slow, to give them both time to adjust to this new possibility. But as soon as Jack's chapped lips touch his, something snaps in his brain and the next thing he knows, he's got his hands clamped tight on either side of Jack's head, his tongue pushing into Jack's mouth with more enthusiasm than finesse. He scrambles out of his chair, landing hard on one knee, bending Jack backwards in his eagerness—and Jack just takes it, hands fisted in David's shirt and his startled noise disappearing into David's mouth.

As much as David wants to remember every detail, it's all a blur of teeth and tongues, greed and a little terror, still, until Jack pushes him back a few agonizing inches, fingers untangling from the cloth over David's chest, stroking gently. "Whoa, Davey, whoa, whoa." His voice is low and hoarse, and David looks at his swollen mouth and thinks, _I did that_ , with a thrill of pride. 

Jack drags in a deep breath. "This," he says on the exhale. He's the one who made the space between them, but his hands can't seem to stop moving over David's body, touching his chest, his arms, his hips. "This ain't just random chance, is it?"

David can feel his already flushed face heat even more, and he glances down; his eyes follow the stripes on Jack's shirt until they disappear into his trousers. "No," he admits. "No, it's not."

Jack's fingers close convulsively for a second, then relax again. David watches his chest rise and fall. "You wouldn't mess me around about this, would you, David?"

"No!" David answers in reflexive horror, eyes snapping back up to meet Jack's. "Of course not, how could you even—"

"All right," Jack says, "all right, don't get all bent outta shape, I just." He leans in again to press their foreheads together. "Just never thought this'd be something you wanted, is all."

 _Never thought_ I _would be someone you wanted_ , David hears, clear as the circulation bell on a winter morning, and even though he knows Jack's scars and the source of them, he still has to chuckle just a little at the absurdity of it. "Jack," he says. "I've wanted this since the minute you climbed up and started writing on that blackboard."

At that, Jack's smile breaks sweet and sudden across his face, and he looks like a kid again, flush with unexpected hope. Then his eyes go mischievous and he tucks his tongue in his cheek. "Took ya that long, huh? Guess I was off my game that first day."

David rolls his eyes, but he can't help grinning, either, which is another thing Jack has always been able to make him want to do. "Oh, you mean when you picked a fight with the Delanceys, practically kidnapped my little brother, and almost got us—" The rest of what he's going to say ends up muffled as Jack winds his fingers through David's tie and yanks him into another kiss.

This one is every bit as hungry, but more leisurely, too, enough that David can take a few notes: the sting of tobacco on Jack's tongue, the promising heat of his thigh between David's legs, the brush of breeze across the bared skin of David's neck as Jack tugs his tie loose and starts in on the buttons of his shirt. 

"Someone," David manages in the damp space between kisses, "someone could—"

Jack makes a noise of protest and drags him closer, tongue delving deeper into David's mouth, and David swears he can feel his own bones melting like ice cream on a summer afternoon. He lets himself sink into it; he'll stop in a minute, just one more minute… and then Jack tears himself away with a growl of frustration. He runs both hands through his hair and looks around a little wildly. "Yeah, right, okay, you're right. We need…." 

Head still spinning, David watches Jack brace his hand on his chair to lever himself upright, then limp awkwardly around the corner—David barely has breath to snicker, but he manages—dragging the chair with him. He sets it up as far from the ladder as possible, with the right angle of the wall as extra cover. David glances up at the sky; it's getting dimmer, though not quite as dim as he'd like. It would be smarter to wait, to find another time and place where they can be sure they won't get caught.

Then Jack says, "C'mere," and jerks his head, and David's never, ever heard him sound like that, and to hell with being smart. He stumbles to his feet—his turn for limping, now, and Jack's for amusement—and makes his way to Jack, who promptly shoves him back into the chair by means of another searing kiss and drops to his knees between David's splayed legs. This time David lets Jack's hands roam wherever they want, lets him tear open the remaining buttons on David's overshirt, slip his tie off over his head, and toss the shirt after it. As soon as his arms are free, David tries to return the favor, but he doesn't get more than a few buttons in before he gets too impatient and just yanks Jack's shirt and undershirt out of his trousers, sliding his hands up underneath to find skin. Jack's stomach tenses and he groans into David's mouth. 

"Gotta—" he mutters, "can I—" and then goes straight for the buttons on David's fly. The first brush of fingers over his aching cock makes David jerk like a marionette, and before he can even start to recover, Jack has him exposed and is settling back on his knees, running his hands slowly up and down David's thighs.

"Tell me what to do, Davey," he says, and there's that tone again, a dark alley made aural. "You know I like when you do that."

David shudders, swallows; he's had these fantasies locked inside his head for so long that it's a struggle to say them aloud, but he's always liked it, too, that Jack—who doesn't take orders from anybody—would hang on his instructions. "Your," he starts, but it comes out of his dry throat as a ghost of sound. He swallows again. "Your mouth," he says, clearer this time. "Put your mouth on me."

"See?" Jack says. "Man of ideas," and he grasps David firmly with one hand before he sinks down to do what he's told.

As soon as Jack's lips close around him, David's back arches involuntarily, and he lets out a high, strangled cry that would be embarrassing except for the way that it makes Jack hum approvingly against David's skin and look up with eyes full of every filthy promise imaginable. David clutches at the chair. This may not be his first time, but it's close enough, and it's sure as hell his first time with someone he's been wanting for what feels like an eternity, and he has to grit his teeth and think of multiplication tables to keep from coming in Jack's mouth right then and there. Which he actually thinks might disappoint Jack as much as it would disappoint him—judging by the noises Jack's making, and the slow, luxurious slide of his tongue along David's cock, he's not in any rush to get things over with. It's clearly not _his_ first time.

"Harder," David manages. Even though his control is already trembling on the breaking point, he wants to see what it does to Jack to hear it. "Suck harder."

His effort is rewarded and then some: with a loud moan from Jack, and one of Jack's hands dropping from David's knee, down to press against the bulge in his own trousers. At the same time, he hollows his cheeks and takes David deeper, and oh, God. _Four fours is sixteen, five fours is twenty, six fours is—_

Jack pulls off with a wet pop, and David can't stop his own hips from angling up to chase him, can't stop the agonized noise that grates out of his throat. Jack laughs low.

"Impatient, huh?" With a glint of teeth, he licks a stripe up David's length before pulling away again.

David convulses helplessly. "Goddammit, Jack, _please_ —" There's a distinct whine in his voice, and he doesn't care. The evening air is warm on his wet skin, a little like Jack's touch, but not enough, not nearly enough. His thighs are trembling with the effort of not just thrusting back into that slick heat.

"Language," Jack chides him, mock-stern, but the smile is still hovering at the edges of his mouth. "All's I wanted to say is that you don't hafta play nice. You wanna do something, you do it, okay?" 

All David wants in the world—all he can ever remember wanting, just now—is Jack's mouth back on him. "Okay, Jack, sure, whatever you say." He curls his fingers into Jack's hair and tugs, just a bit. _Please._

Jack's eyelids flutter. "Good. And one more thing: you don't gotta warn me before you come. I like it," he says, and David feels _that_ like a lightning strike: there's no time for warnings anyway, because as soon as Jack sucks him in again, David arches up and spills down his throat.

He's not entirely sure what happens after that; by the time he can get his eyes to focus, Jack has him licked clean and tucked away again, and is watching him with all the smug satisfaction of a cat who ate the canary. Or maybe "the cat who ate the cream" is more appropriate in this case. Either way, David finds himself eager to earn the same expression. With that in mind, he launches himself out of his chair and kisses Jack right down to the ground. 

And it's good, so good to have Jack stretched out for him—David can touch him anywhere, everywhere, if he wants to—but even through his clothes, David can feel the bite of the concrete beneath them, and he can imagine what that will do to the back of Jack's head before long. So after brief consideration, he sits up to retrieve his discarded shirt and fold it up for a makeshift pillow, all the while with Jack staring at him like he's some sort of strange and endearing new species. When he's done, though, Jack nestles his head into the shirt and gives him another of those sweet, crooked smiles. "You're a good guy, Dave, you know that?"

David lifts a shoulder. "So're you." And being able to follow that up as he's wanted to for so long, with his mouth warm on Jack's, is a pleasure so piercing it almost borders on pain. He lets the kiss lengthen, deepen, lets his hand drift down Jack's chest to the first button of his trousers.

Jack breaks off the kiss with a gasp. "Hey, you don't have to, I can—"

"Are you kidding? I want to," David insists. He keeps his eyes on Jack's and his fingers busy. Jack sinks his teeth into his bottom lip, obviously struggling to stay focused.

"You ever done this before?"

David sends up a silent prayer of thanks to Race's friend. "Yeah," he answers as casually as he can, "I have."

 _That_ brings the focus back; Jack's eyebrows almost climb off his forehead. "You did? When?" 

All of a sudden David feels like they're backstage at Medda's with the guys, swapping boasts and half-truths about their exploits, which seems particularly ridiculous given that they're in the middle of an exploit right now. But still, "At the track a few months back," he admits. 

"Well, extry, extry." Jack's eyes are alight with prurient interest. "Do I get to read all about it?"

David can't help his incredulous snort of laughter; he gestures at Jack's unbuttoned trousers. _"Now?"_

"Oh hell no," Jack says emphatically, which makes David laugh harder. "But later. I definitely want to hear all about it later." He shifts his hips like the thought makes him crave friction, and David feels a stab of lust low in his belly.

"Fine," he says, grinning, because if it gets this sort of reaction, he'll tell Jack every true story and make up a dozen false ones besides. "You'll get an exclusive, all right?"

"Mmm." Jack winks at him. "Sold."

"Good," David says, somewhere between firm and amused. He gestures again toward Jack's buttons. "Can I keep going now?"

"Yeah, sure," Jack answers, then adds breathily, "But be gentle with me," and he laughs when David rolls his eyes before reaching down between Jack's legs.

The buttons on Jack's underwear are the work of a few seconds, and so—contrary to the worldliness he's just implied—David realizes quickly enough that fully-clothed, whiskey-soaked fumbling in the dark is a very different thing from staring at a flushed, hard cock all laid out for him. His mouth waters; he wants to taste it, definitely, and to make Jack feel as good as he possibly can, but he doesn't know exactly where to start. 

While he's still debating, Jack leans up to kiss him. "It's okay," he says, obviously reading David's hesitation as reluctance, "we'll start slow." He grabs David's wrist. "Here. Spit. Like we're gonna shake on it, only more."

David blinks, confused, until Jack's meaning sinks in. _Right._ It's not like he's going to leave Jack lying here while he goes for the oil that's stashed far under his bed. So he brings his hand up and drips spit into it; somewhere in the back of his mind, seventeen-year-old David is grimacing, but seventeen-year-old David doesn't know that Jack can look like this: swollen lips parted, panting with the anticipation of his touch. Faced with that, it's not even a fight—without the slightest hesitation, David reaches down to take Jack into his spit-slick hand.

Jack's spine bows, his head tips back, and he bunches the side of David's undershirt into his fist. "Fuck," he hisses. _"Yes."_

"Language," David mocks absently, but he's mostly occupied with the sight of Jack's cock between his fingers. There's more liquid at the head, and David swipes his palm through it, spreads it downward and then back up with steady pressure.

"Good," Jack gasps out, his eyes drifting closed and open again. "That's real good, Davey, keep going. But talk to me."

"Talk to you?" Only a very small portion of David's brain is devoted to words right now, and most of them wouldn't bear repeating in polite company. Not that Jack has ever been that.

"Yeah," Jack says. His hips hitch up into the movement of David's hand. "C'mon, Walking Mouth. You never been at a loss for words since I knew you."

David's laugh comes out breathless. "Not about the rights of the working men and women of New York, no. But I'm guessing that's not what you want to hear."

Jack raises one eyebrow; he shudders when David tries a small twist on the downstroke. "You'd—shit, do that again—you'd be surprised."

David drops his head to bury his chuckle in Jack's hair. He thinks he understands, though—when he watches Jack at rallies and meetings, his feelings are always part pride, part hope, and part… something distinctly less pure. Experimenting, he murmurs in Jack's ear: "It's not just New York, you know." Jack writhes against him, and David smiles and grips him a little harder. "Homestead, St. Louis, San Francisco, even. The world is changing, Jack. Leaders like you, writers like us, workers who won't be coerced into giving up their rights—there are too many voices. They can't ignore us anymore." 

Jack's breath is coming shorter now. "Yeah. _Fuck_ , yeah, just like that." 

"You made me believe it," David whispers, losing himself in the memory, stroking faster. Jack atop that statue, Jack scrawling letters across a blackboard, Jack refusing to accept the raw deal they'd all been given. "You made me believe we could have what we wanted. What we deserved. Jack." He nuzzles down so that he can drag his teeth along the curve of Jack's jaw, and makes his confession into his neck. "I've never wanted anything the way I want you."

A tremor shakes Jack's whole body at that, and he pulses in David's grip. David's own hips shift restlessly—he's not hard again yet, but he could be soon, if this keeps up. "Davey," Jack rasps, sounding as raw and honest as David's ever heard him. "Davey." He thrusts into David's hand with a groan that, if David were writing a story about it, could only be described as _wanton_. David's feeling fairly wanton, himself, enough that before he can think too hard about it, he's sliding down Jack's body. 

Jack scrabbles at his shoulder. "Dave—you don't gotta—" 

"Shut up, Jack," David murmurs, and closes his lips around the tip of Jack's cock. 

Three things happen then, in very rapid succession: Jack yanks so hard at the collar of David's shirt that he can hear stitches tear; David swirls his tongue once, twice, around the head of Jack's cock; and Jack gives an incoherent shout and comes in David's mouth.

It tastes kind of strange, salt and bitter, but David swallows it down anyway, and there's something appealing in the thought of having this small part of Jack's essence inside him. He stays where he is at first, taking the opportunity for some experimental licks that make Jack jerk and gasp and spill a few more drops, until finally he drags David upward with clumsy fingers and pulls him into a sloppy kiss. When Jack releases him, David flops down at his side, feeling like he's been hollowed out and filled with molasses instead of muscle and bone.

"I'll never be able to give another speech again," Jack says eventually, still breathing hard. "I'll get all worked up and be arrested for public indecency."

"Podium," David says drowsily. "We'll get you a podium."

Jack laughs, and wriggles around until he can work his overshirt off, wad it up, and shove it under David's head, before rolling over to press his forehead against David's shoulder. David turns his head enough that he can breathe in the familiar scent of Jack's hair oil. He knows they can't stay out here all night, at least not like this, but he's not ready to go back yet, back into the world where he can only touch and speak to Jack in friendship.

"We got a right to this, too," Jack says into his shoulder, quiet but fierce. "I ain't giving this up, not until you're done with me. And maybe not even then, if I got anything to say about it."

Something cracks in the center of David's chest, spilling out warmth with a fine edge of pain. He reaches down and winds his fingers through Jack's. "Hey. We're partners, remember? We're _family_. I'm not going anywhere."

Jack leans up and kisses him for that, hard and hungry, and David kisses him hard and hungry right back. When Jack collapses onto his back again, David loosens the bindings and lets the future unfurl in his mind, the way he's hardly dared to do before tonight. 

It could work. If Jack pitches in under the table, and if David's very careful with his money, in a few years he can get a small place, maybe, and still have enough left over to help his folks. And once he's done that, it won't be such a surprise to his neighbors if his best friend spends an evening or five at "his" house, any given week. It might raise suspicion if Jack is seen leaving on too many mornings in a row, but given Jack's affinity for fire escapes, that won't be a hardship, for now anyway. His parents might be disappointed that he won't be delivering any grandchildren, but New York is full of bachelors, by choice or by necessity; he won't be so different. Sarah and Spot—or whoever she chooses—can be responsible for passing on the Jacobs blood.

And if that plan doesn't work, they can go to Sante Fe, or Philadelphia, or the far side of the world, for all David cares. What's between him and Jack can be dangerous, he knows, but they've faced down danger together before. And he'd sure as hell rather have Jack in the shadows and behind closed doors than never have him at all.

There's a faint breeze drifting over the edges of the roof now, carrying the fresh scent of tomato plants, and there's a bright half-moon above them. "What do you think the moon looks like in Santa Fe tonight?" David asks—a little bit because it's a night where anything seems possible, and a lot because he wants Jack to know: _your dreams are my dreams now; we go together_.

Jack doesn't answer at first, looking up at the sky. David can see the curve of his mouth in the moonlight. Then he rolls his head sideways to meet David's eyes. "Looks pretty much like that."


End file.
